This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Find all my work at MJMunoz.com
Welcome to my Ultraman Zet 10 review, which I'm calling Ultra Cut-Up. This episode features
a horror heist, boss, bako, and seeds of destruction. This episode was a lot of fun and gave me
some thoughts on how to make it, the show in general, better. Find out why, or how,
or what, as I address a few topics that caught my attention. So the first topic, or first
thing to discuss, is Human Puppet 2 Strings of Terror. And if you watched episode 9, you'll
know why I'm calling this Human Puppet 2, because we saw a lot of human puppeteering,
or we saw minimal human puppeteering going on in that episode. In this we get, I think
at least two people who were puppeteered, and then there's a bonus hypnotism if you
want to count that, but it's unto an Ultraman, not a human. So, but yeah, the horror elements
and the scariness of this alien Barossa were dialed up to 11 when the actress for Yoko
was doing her like zombified brain control walk. Like, it almost looks like he's holding
her up by her skull with his hand squeezing on it. And actually, I got a lot more stuff
to say about Barossa, but I think I'll say that till, yeah, I'll say that for my next
point. But like, the actress's performance, she looked like she was a zombie, like she
was being controlled by her head. I took an acting class in college, in JC, and the lady
who was teaching us told us, I guess the drama teacher, she said, some people walk differently.
And I, what do you mean people walk? Yeah, some people walk from their toes, some people
walk from their heels, some people walk from their knees, or their hips, or their shoulders,
or different parts of their body. And you can affect a different character in yourself
if you're trying to, you know, be a real thespian by giving your characters a particular walk
or, you know, lead, or thing that they lead by when they walk. And that helps to embody
something different. And it was really interesting because we did this exercise, and long story
short, I did different walks and I felt different ways. And I thought, oh, I guess if I really
want to do is I could lean into a character, I could do, be a hero, I could be a villain,
I could do this, I could do that, whatever. And whatever that lady did to change her walkup,
it was really cool because it didn't look human, it didn't look natural, it didn't
look alive, it didn't look like Yoko at all. It looked like someone else, it looked like
something else. And that was very effective, so super cool. And then, you know, again,
this is a bad guy, right? A pirate, an alien who's willing to kill people for stuff, for
treasure, really. Barossa threatens Yuka that he'll crush Yoko's skull if he, and kill
her, if she doesn't help him by releasing King Joe. And what was really neat about that
was the way that the actress was performing. I couldn't tell if he was able to dial up
his sync or his connection with Yoko to control her, to have her say, you know, do you even
care about me, or whatever. She yelled at Yuka to get her to, you know, release her,
or release King Joe to release her. I feel like that was definitely Alien Barossa just
doing a better job of what he was doing, because the standard effect for Barossa to control
somebody is they have like dead eyes, they're kind of slack-jawed, they're barely talking,
and there's a very synthesized voice effect going on. But then that all went away, and
this was the actress performing as if Yoko was out of her mind in pain and terror, and
wanted help. And see, either way you slice it, it's really creepy and awful and wonderful,
because either she really was so much out of herself, because she's a very heroic noble
character, that she was willing, or that she was at that place where she was so desperate
for Yuka to release her that she said the things she said, or Barossa was able to so
overpower her, and I guess overwrite her will, or whatever, that he was able to puppeteer
her in such a masterful way with such finesse. And either way it's creepy, like I said. So
that was really neat. Pirate Ship Revenge. This pirate, Alien Barossa, wanted treasure,
has a bunch of swords, has a bunch of weapons, has a bunch of items from different Kaiju,
which is super cool to think about, and is here on Earth, or still here on Earth, because
they want King Joe back, because King Joe is his ship, and yeah, that's kind of it.
King Joe's his ship, he wants it back, and that's why I made the joke of Pirate Ship
Revenge. He's also enacting revenge on these humans to take his ship. It's really cool
that he has all these different weapons that we can see. He's got this sort of blaster,
we get to see by the end of the episode he's got a dozen swords or so, which is pretty
cool. And then we also get to see, ah, that's what I was thinking about, okay. And then
we also get to see that he has the hair of some Kaiju that enables him to become invisible,
which was incredible. And yeah, I don't know, see, I didn't catch it last episode, I thought
that Ultraman Z totally grabbed all the medals away from Borosa as he was trying to pull
them to him. But maybe I was wrong, because he dropped three medals this episode, which
enabled the power-up weapon, and I don't know if those were supposed to be other medals
that he had, and he was just going for three more to make at least six in his possession,
or what the deal was with that. But, you know, definitely a pirate, and his cutthroatness
and his, I guess cleverness and infiltration and things like that all speak well to this
guy being a pirate who ravages and raids and steals things from people through force, and
that's pretty intense, so that was cool. Speaking of power, Bako makes a comment in passing
about too much power, and it's about King Joe, and he's not sure man's ready to have
this kind of power yet, and it kind of ties into last episode at the end there was this
ominous shot of part of the King Joe wreckage being carted off to storage's facility, to
storage's storage facility, in order for them to work on it and make this, you know, new
mech that they're going to make, and that's interesting, but then Boros' hand shot up
out of the debris, and it seemed like he was going to be in trouble, which he proved to
be in this episode, so was that ominous stuff about that, or was it talking about something
with King Joe's power? It might be. There's kind of a lot happening, a lot of stuff going
quickly in these episodes, as much as, so I'm not going to lie about it. Eight and nine
I thought were kind of weak, ten I thought was very strong, but it was very narrowly
focused and there were a lot of little things that went by that almost felt like they might
be seeds planted for the future. I don't know for sure that that's what they are. I think
I vaguely remember from watching it previously, yes, but as far as this goes, they could just
be asides or little things that are mentioned and not brought up again, but we don't really
know that yet, and we'll have to see, we'll have to see what happened. So, I don't know,
I don't know what to do with that, but just kind of something interesting to note, but
I wonder, you know, what's Baco saying and how dangerous will this technology be? And
it's kind of funny because right now in 2023 we're in the era of everybody being afraid
of ChatGDP and the other AI things, even though, you know, I hear some people saying, no, it's
not really true AI, it's just a language model, but then there's this author I listen to,
she says, no, ChatGDP 4 is great and I can co-write with this thing and it's amazing.
I'm more of the opinion that everything is up to how it's used and I'm not scared of
it, but I also want to learn about it so I can better understand it so I can use it properly,
which I guess, you know, maybe Baco's saying, hey, we need to slow down because mankind
didn't develop this technology. Youka brings up certain technologies, the Industrial Revolution
and other things that mankind adapted to for the better, and I think there's a lot of strong
arguments you could make to say that the Industrial Revolution made things a little worse in some
ways, but I'm a capitalist and I'm pro-human flourishing, so to the degrees that it contributed
to human flourishing, that's great, but then again, there's a lot of things that were said
to have been made for human flourishing or human betterment that I think ultimately we're
seeing now have the unintended consequences, or maybe they were intended, or maybe they
are being co-opted and are now intended to inflict harm on people that are, you know,
conveniences, modern conveniences and modern miracles that are actually causing very deleterious
effects on health and other things that, you know, people need to take ownership of their
own lives and, you know, get away from those things or rectify them for themselves and
their families, and that's kind of all you can do because I don't think you can change
the system and, you know, there should be a law to make this better isn't really a good
thing because that's a kind of power that gets out of hand that people can't really
control or maintain in a way that's productive to human flourishing, but I'm not getting
on a soapbox right now, so I will continue and talk about the blue-collar heroes. I love
that Valko, this older guy, 50s, 60s, probably 60s with how much white hair he has, but then
again he could be like a Steve Martin, not Godzilla Steve Martin, but Steve, uh, stupid,
but Steve Martin, like the jerk Steve Martin, Little Shopper Horror Steve Martin, anyway,
but yeah, he basically tells these three young guys that are with him, hey, you guys leave,
you get out of here, you go, I'll handle this on my own, and they tell him, no, we're proud
members of the, you know, mechanic squad here, and we're going to help you, and he's proud
of them, and they work together, and it was just really wonderful, heartwarming feeling,
like these guys are surrounded by this technology, there's questions of what's going to happen
with the tech and whatever, and there's this, you know, evil alien doing this, you know,
terrible stuff, and yet, uh, they're pulling together, they're using their humanity and
like the goodness that is in humans to like stand with this guy who was nobody going to
basically sacrifice himself for them, and then they're saying, no, we're going to be
here and not just abandon you and leave you to this fate, we're here for you and we're
going to help you in whatever capacity we can.
Now they didn't really help that much, but the little that they did I think is not, uh,
it's nothing to sneeze at, so it's just he's older, wiser, we see he has some combat prowess,
so he's crafty and he comes up with a cool plan to distract Barossa, and it in fact gets
him almost defeated, which was really cool, especially because they did it just with manpower.
Uh, Haruki and Bako teamed up to do this thing with electricity and, you know, liquid, and
uh, it was really cool, it was a really great moment.
Um, and then Alien Barossa is very silly and very serious, like I said, he, you know, is
willing to murder people, he's doing this horror stuff where he's controlling people's
bodies and it's just not a good, uh, it's not a good look, it's not a good, well, I
don't know, it is good, it's bad what he's doing, but he's very good at being bad and
it's, you know, that's a good thing, right?
You get what I'm saying?
He's effectively being a bad guy and that's great for the show and that's great for the
evil character, but um, he's also silly.
And um, I think I mentioned that I called this ultra cut up because it's funny and there's
jokes and there's humor in his, uh, I guess in his depravity and in his, I don't know,
he's almost got like this cartoon violence type vibe going on and like when he starts
throwing the dirt in Zed's face and you know, gets dirt in his eyes and stuff.
Um, I'm going to put some dirt in your eye.
Uh, um, I really like Spider-Man, some of the memes are great.
Anyway, um, so yeah, that was, you know, it's interesting how they played with that and
how I wasn't bothered by that shifting in tone at all.
Um, but it was just interesting how they played with him and made him this, you know, really,
really bad, wicked character who's doing bad things and you know, enjoying hurting people
because it makes him happy to be bad.
And uh, I don't know, it was just really interesting and fun and I thought it was a cool thing
that they did with him and uh, I don't know, I don't know what more to say to that other
than I, I guess I'm wanting to comment on it because some people could be irritated
by the zaniness, but the zanian evil killer, um, it works for me, at least in this context
with this guy.
Okay, so one last major thing for me to address, which is too much power part two, the problem
with Ultra Fusion and how I would fix it and uh, FYI, or maybe it's FMI for my information,
according to Hargis Ultra Navi, uh, Jack and Zero have ornamental weapons.
So he says that Jack, just like Master Zero, has a bracelet that he turns into a weapon
or several different types of weapons.
And I find that interesting because part of how I would fix the problems I have with Zet
are as I would make the Zet Riser the Metal Riser, which I've talked about previously,
and I would also eliminate, I would eliminate the forms.
There would be, you know, vanilla Zet and then there would be like the uh, Alpha Edge
version.
Actually, if I had to just go to one alternate form, I would make it uh, man, Gamma Future.
Gamma Future looks so cool.
Um, that's what I would do.
Uh, I don't really under, like I understand, well, I basically understand the Beta Capsule
in the case of the original Ultraman.
The Beta Capsule was the device that allowed uh, Shin Hayata to become Ultraman somehow.
It channeled his power or whatever and then it activated within him in order for him to,
you know, for them to become giant and fight Kaiju and stuff.
Now, the Metal Riser could simply be the same thing.
It could in and of itself be the thing that makes it so that uh, you know, the Metal Riser
without any metals in it could be the thing, well, hold on, let me, let me back up real
quick.
It could be the transformation device by itself and that's it.
Just it itself with no metals in it could be the transformation device and I'll come
back to that.
But the thing I have about too much power is we, it feels like we're getting power up
after power up after power up.
Just episode, episode 8, no, rather episode 9, um, he attained three metals that Zero
didn't, oh sorry, yeah, Zet did not know what their function was.
He forgot, conveniently.
He didn't need to get those metals at the time.
I don't, I think we were shown who, there was Mibius and a couple other people, I don't
know who though, but um, those metals were shown and they were not able to be utilized
because he didn't know what they were for.
However, the previous episode, episode 8, he'd just gotten three more metals which unlocked
the Gamma Future form.
So we've got the, at least nine metals now for the three forms that he has, Alpha Edge,
Beta Smash and Gamma Future.
Then we have three more, so now we have a total of 12 metals and uh, then we have 15,
we have three more in this episode, so that there are now 15 metals that he has spread
across three forms and this super weapon and then one unknown one.
And I, uh, it just feels like too much.
It's ill defined in the beginning of the show on purpose what the metals are for, except
for somehow these metals are able to be utilized to counteract the Devil Splinters.
I guess you could say if the Devil Splinters are fragments of Belial or Belial cells or
however specifically they want to get on it, you know, talk about splitting the hairs on
a gnats behind, um, then these Ultra Metals which have the essence of various Ultramen
are a land of light or a light powered counter measure to the Devil Splinters, which that
I'm fine with and that does make sense.
However, uh, I guess it hasn't fully been defined how the, like the Belial Splinters,
the Devil Splinters infect Kaiju and make them run rampant.
I believe that's how that goes.
So uh, being that that's, you know, a darkness fueled power or energy, it makes sense that
they would corrupt and warp and uh, I guess forcibly alter a Kaiju so that they went rogue,
went bad, went on a rampage.
Now you wouldn't want to have the Ultramen, the Ultra Metals being the counter to that,
have the same effect where they infected somebody for lack of a better word and made them good,
made them do random acts of kindness or neutralize their evil or whatever.
You would just want to have them be a channel to opening a power, uh, of power from past
Ultramen.
And that makes sense so I would keep that and I would keep the Metal Riser but uh, it's
just there's too much too soon and it doesn't really make sense why he would switch so
all these forms like they can all fly, they can all fight.
He also has the power of that spear, the ancient spear for Pegula or whatever, left by an ancient
Ultraman which is a cool idea but uh, I feel like the, and then like we got to see Riku
as, or Gide, using his Zetriser as a weapon in and of itself, a blade-like weapon and
we get to see Gamma Future in this episode using it as a blade-like weapon and then it
literally, well, when it gets these uh, these other powers, or these other Ultra Metals
in it, which these ones are Father of Ultra, Zoffy, and I don't know who else but anyway
when he gets these ones, uh, and it activates the sword mode or whatever you want to call
it of the Zetriser, it occurred to me, oh, I know how to fix this.
You could instead of have, like, going back to the theme of the show or a thematic element
in the characters and their setup, uh, Zero calls Zet a one-third hero and you could have
a situation where the Ultra Metals do maybe different things for different people or at
least specifically with Zet, they give him the ability to tap into the powers of other
Ultras which is, that's what they say it does, it's inherited technique, space martial arts,
whatever, right?
But I would say be a little more specific than that, uh, have maybe heroic traits or
I guess like Ultraman X uses monster parts, uh, which sounds like a really great idea,
I think they're called cyber arms and he gets like kaiju parts for weapons, that's super
dope.
I would say why not just have Zet have a similar ability perhaps that either the Zetriser channels
power of these Ultras and it gives him one of their attributes or maybe let's say you
get three of them who are known for being strong or being fast or being great fliers
or having ranged weapons or whatever, you get three Ultraman who harmonize across the
Ultra Series and you pick a trait to concentrate on and you say okay the contribution of these
Ultraman given willingly gives a, it opens up a limited channel of power and it allows
this guy to through the Zetriser have the ability to either do a thing, like it either
turns into a weapon, a different type of weapon, or it turns into, um, some sort of armor piece
or maybe even like, I don't know, like he gets someone's legs or their, uh, like Ace's
head blade or whatever, which he kind of has the two, like Zero has, um, which is interesting
when he becomes off edge because Zet himself just has a single fin, not the double.
Um, so like you could just play with his physiology some more and give him like different armors
like themed after the different Ultras and I think that would be a lot cooler and it
would almost be like a acknowledgement that he's, uh, nascent in his power and he's, you
know, growing and training and developing himself as an Ultraman and like, I don't know,
like almost give him like a sampler platter of, uh, movesets that he can have channeled
through the Zetriser and then like Vanilla Zet will have those intrinsically without
a Zetriser because I don't know that they, like if Zet appears in, um, other things like
the, uh, like the Absolute Tartarus or the Absolute Conspiracy, that kind of thing,
um, yeah Absolute Conspiracy, like when he appears in that I don't think he has the
Zetriser anymore and he doesn't use it, he just uses his powers however he does and like,
I don't know, that's a silly inconsistency that I really don't get and so anyway getting
to it, uh, or getting back to it and focusing a little bit more, he's, I think I've determined
he has 15 medals right now plus he has the spear.
I would say so far he's got a sword, he's got a spear, um, Gamma Future has like weird
magic powers that it gives him so that's, that's three weapons.
Let's say every three medals gives him one like big power set.
You could basically have like five weapons that he has.
You could give him, so I'd, I'd said keep the sword, give him a spear or you know keep
the spear but transfer it to the Zetriser because that just makes more sense and it
makes the toy like more appealing so I, and I kind of understand.
The medals are done for collectability, um, which I'm fine with them using toys to sell
or using, you know, the thing that as a toy selling platform but like, I don't know, make
it make more sense like, uh, they have like recolors of the Zetriser, um, with the dark
one, the Zarkra, Dark Zetriser that, um, Juggler uses and stuff.
That's fine, that's cool.
But like, I don't know, you can just make them parallel.
I know half his, he came into different monsters, like that's cool, that works for him but like,
I don't know, thematically it feels better since Zet is so obsessed with these other
heroes which I could see he's using the power of these heroes but like, if he gets weapons
and he like, uh, emulates these heroes instead with the weaponry that he gets and you kind
of just ditch the form thing, I just feel like that would be better.
That makes a lot more sense to me.
Um, that makes a lot more sense to me.
Anyway, you can give him a sword, you can give him a spear, which the spear is also like a bow and arrow and it shoots ice stuff out of it.
The sword is like a cool laser sword.
You can give him like a fire weapon or a lightning weapon.
Uh, I would say like a whip, so we got sword, spear, whip, um, maybe it's just like a, um,
not, uh, almost like, just like a hand blade, like a dagger type thing at first.
Like just the edge of it is a thing that he can use and it's like his default weapon when
he gets desperate.
So, so you've got the plain Zetriser and you've got, you know, plus whatever to become a sword,
then it becomes a spear, then it becomes, uh, maybe separately from the spear, the bow
and arrow and then like a whip.
That way he doesn't have to have like a gun.
You can give him the, the bow and arrow or it can be like a crossbow or something like
that.
I think five weapons.
I think those are cool.
Those are unique.
Um, if you could relate him to ultras again, I don't know ultra history, so I can't tell
you that I'm, you know, a relative new to Ultraman and it's, it's a little dense or
a little difficult to like, they all look the same, you know, like it's hard to tell
the difference between them.
I, I, uh, haven't like wiki'd a bunch of it like I have with Cominrader over the years.
But then again, I've been interested deeply in Cominrader for like 13 years and Ultraman
for like a couple.
So, uh, it's kind of weird to me, but yeah, I could, I mean, I think they'd be super cool
dagger or it's like a little hand blade, a knife, right?
Then it's a sword, then it's a, uh, spear, which is longer versions.
Uh, then it's a whip, then it's, I don't know, man, like a mace or something.
A mace would be cool.
Um, but maybe they didn't want it to feel too much like Ultraman X, but just like, I
don't know.
It just, it just doesn't make sense to me what they're doing with it.
And then, uh, it kind of feels like I would, I would like it if they did that better because
it wouldn't feel like he has all this power.
It feels like, um, he has like, you know, tools in his toolkit that he can whip out
and switch through when he needs a better one.
And it just, I don't know, it would feel like it's less power cause like Beta Smash feels
like he's supposed to be this really strong physical fighter.
Gamma Future feels like he's got just like, he's just like a more powerful, like ranged
fighter almost, sort of, um, with the duplicates and stuff.
I don't know.
It's just kind of weird how that all works out.
And uh, I just think it's kind of strange.
So those are my, my thoughts on some of the problems with, uh, Zet and how they designed
the toy line and how you could fix it instead.
Um, but then maybe again, I should just go watch Ultraman X, but uh, like, you know,
it just didn't come out this year or in 2019 or whatever when Zet did or Z and Zet did,
but uh, you know, whatever.
Um, anyway, I'm going to go ahead and get out of here and you can check out all my stuff
in the show notes, including my children's picture book, uh, script, manuscript, uh,
inspired by Ultraman.
It's called Ava and the Grow Bug.
And I have a better version of it that I'm working on or that I've already edited and
improved and made adjustments to.
And you're getting the, uh, the Beta version of it.
Uh, it might be a smash to read.
You never know.
I'm going to check that out and, uh, you can look forward to the gamma feature.
We'll have a better version of Ava and the Grow Bug out along with other Grow Bug books,
which are also inspired by Tokusatsu, but other things like Godzilla and Kamen Rider
and Super Sentai and Digimon, which I can explain why I would call that Tokusatsu, but
you know, I'll do that later.
Anyway, I am going to get out of here.
Be well folks.
And this is MJ signing out.
I hope you enjoyed that.
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